Tag: wedding ideas

Continuing from our most recent post about why to hire a Professional City Hall Wedding Photographer:

Best City Hall Photographer

Guiding you through the Process

This is one advantage that most brides and grooms don’t think about. Yes, we know how to help you with the whole city hall wedding process. From procuring your wedding license to checking in at the County Clerks’s office and then finally the ceremony. Is this kind of assistance really necessary? Probably not, but if you want to truly enjoy your wedding day, it makes sense to let someone else handle the complicated process of having your civil ceremony at city hall. We find that most of our couples really are at a loss of where to go and what to do on the day of their ceremony. When do you bring in the witness? Why are we checking in? Where do we get married? These are common questions we are asked when we first meet our engaged couples on the day of their wedding. To make the day go smoothly, we simply guide the couple through each step and stay with them the whole time. Our couples love this and it makes their special day care free.

Posing the Married Couple at City Hall

While it is true that your friend or relative who is “really good with a camera” may be able to take high quality images that are in focus, chances are they will not know how to pose the couple. This is where most amateur wedding photographers fall down on the job. Not coming up with fun and unique poses and more importantly, not knowing how to make the bride look her best. Brides come in all kinds of shapes and sizes and each one of them deserves a professional wedding photographer who knows how to accentuate the good parts and hide the less than perfect aspects of the bride’s look. This is not something that just anyone can do without any training or experience. A professional wedding photography can take one look at the couple and know exactly how to handle the posing. Your wedding day is too important of an event to leave to chance.

Final Products – Wedding Albums and Prints

What happens when your San Francisco City Hall wedding is over? If you hired a professional wedding photographer, you will receive edited images within a month or less in most cases. We deliver ours to our married couples in 3 weeks. If you have your Uncle Bob photograph your wedding, when will you receive the photos? When will he get to it? With they even be professionally edited? There are many reading this article right now thinking, big deal, we can do all of this ourselves. The truth of the matter is that statistics show that most wedding couples do absolutely nothing with their wedding digital files. Sure, they may post a few on Social Media and maybe even make a print on their home Inkjet printer. But is this really how that should be handled? We offer our couples retouched professionally processed prints and beautiful wedding albums as options. Many of our clients take advantage of this. Even those that do not are assured of receiving a finished product after their wedding. Fully edited and perfectly exposed wedding pictures!

San Francisco City Hall Wedding Ideas

We have been photographing weddings at San Francisco City Hall now for nearly 10 years and have learned some interesting ideas and helpful hints throughout this time. I thought it would be instructive to share some of these thoughts with our readers to help engaged couples planning on getting married at San Francisco City Hall.

Hire a Professional Wedding Photographer – OK probably no surprise that I started with this hint since I am a City Hall Wedding Photographer. However, this is not strictly self-serving. I would highly recommend that you hire ANY of the top wedding photographers that specialize in City Hall weddings. Why? Because the top 10 or so photographers will not only take wonderful photos of your ceremony and formal shots, but they will also guide you through the process. Over these 10 years I have watched other photographers work with their clients and all of them are happy to help. Conversely, when I see couples without a photographer, they appear confused and keep doing the wrong thing with regard to activities like the County Clerk ceremony check-in. Having a helpful professional there to guide you just takes one more stressful thing to worry about on your wedding day.

Dress up and Bring Flowers – We often find that brides and grooms are surprised when they see other couples wearing formal attire. Many of them are disappointed that they didn’t do the same. I think people that are unfamiliar with SF City Hall don’t realize that people actually do formal weddings there because of the beauty of the venue. But the biggest issue we see is brides not bringing a bouquet for photography. The only negative thing I would ever say about City Hall is that the colors are all very monotone. So even though our photos come out gorgeous with the amazing backgrounds and architecture, SO much is added simply be mixing in a splash of color. It also gives the bride something to do with her hands!

Avoid City Hall Crowds – Yes, it really is possible to have your wedding San Francisco City Hall and not have other weddings and tourists everywhere. How do we avoid this? You just need to pick your spots. Tuesdays and Thursdays are the best days to get married and by far the least crowded. Some people tell me, “But we can’t get married in the middle of the week, it needs to be Friday to accommodate our friends and family”. Well if you have ever been in City Hall on “Crazy Friday”, you wont be using the word “accommodate” and “Friday” in the same sentence. Ask your friends and family, they might surprise you. Also, if you really want to have the place to yourself, get married early morning (9:30 am slot) or later (3:30 pm slot).

Consider a Reserved Ceremony – Obviously one of the big draws to having your nuptials at San Francisco City Hall is the low cost. Under $100 to get married in this beautiful historic building. However, the rules state that you should only bring 6 guests. Yes, most people ignore these rules, but you are still limited and the more people you bring the more others are disrupted. Reserving the Mayor’s Balcony or the 4th Floor North Gallery only costs $1,000 and pretty much guarantees you privacy and 1 hour of no crowds. Get married on a Friday, who cares now! You have your own space, they rope if off, and even set up chairs for your 40 guests. In addition, your wedding photographer now has at least one location to get great shots !